Mr. Ashdale,
I am reading this morning about the life of a writer you have referred to several times recently - the Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño.
Apparently Bolano died of an unspecified liver ailment in 2003, at the age of 50.
Could the death of Bolano somehow be connected to your focus on the organ of drink?
People say that Bolano's drink of choice was heroin and that he died of it but...
"numerous Latin American and European critics and bloggers have taken the side of his widow, accusing American critics and publishers of deliberately distorting the writer’s past to fit him into the familiar mold of the tortured artist."
What do you think? Was he tortured? And did he have drink? I haven't read him yet. Though now that I recall the size of the book - I am not sure that I am up to another dismembering.
BTW - I am now intrigued by Bolano after reading the NYT piece and finding out he was a literary game player "who played with reality, who cultivated ambiguities and false identities".
One of my favourite writers in this regard is Nabokov - who by the way wrote a beautiful little autobiography called Speak Memory. I'm afraid now that I may have to tackle Bolano at some point, including his as yet unwritten biography. Damn. More f*ucking torturous reading. Why can't a book just be injected into one's head? It would be a lot easier that way and maybe offer a different type of pleasure - perhaps like taking heroin.
> Info Source
I am reading this morning about the life of a writer you have referred to several times recently - the Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño.
Apparently Bolano died of an unspecified liver ailment in 2003, at the age of 50.
Could the death of Bolano somehow be connected to your focus on the organ of drink?
People say that Bolano's drink of choice was heroin and that he died of it but...
"numerous Latin American and European critics and bloggers have taken the side of his widow, accusing American critics and publishers of deliberately distorting the writer’s past to fit him into the familiar mold of the tortured artist."
What do you think? Was he tortured? And did he have drink? I haven't read him yet. Though now that I recall the size of the book - I am not sure that I am up to another dismembering.
BTW - I am now intrigued by Bolano after reading the NYT piece and finding out he was a literary game player "who played with reality, who cultivated ambiguities and false identities".
One of my favourite writers in this regard is Nabokov - who by the way wrote a beautiful little autobiography called Speak Memory. I'm afraid now that I may have to tackle Bolano at some point, including his as yet unwritten biography. Damn. More f*ucking torturous reading. Why can't a book just be injected into one's head? It would be a lot easier that way and maybe offer a different type of pleasure - perhaps like taking heroin.
> Info Source
I knew about Bolano's short life and unclean living but my interest in the liver exam was coincidental.
ReplyDeleteCan books be injected into your head? Of course! Audiobooks.